94 AN ANGLER'S YEAR 



trout which ought to be mine. I waded carefully within 

 easy casting distance, and first cast the fly floated over 

 him without drag. Suddenly it was gone, and I struck ; 

 a heavy plunge told of a good fish, necessitating careful 

 handling. It is my habit, as I have said, when fishing 

 weedy water, to hold all fish hard and haul them down- 

 stream, which plan of treating trout is, I am convinced, 

 the only certain method of preventing them weeding 

 themselves. When I cannot run, as, for instance, when 

 wading, I always pull the line through the rod rings in 

 order to get it in quickly. Discussing the matter with 

 a fellow angler, he stated that, in his opinion, it was 

 safer to wind up the fish and play him from the winch, 

 and that this could be done quite as quickly as pulling 

 the line down. On this occasion I tried vvinding-in, and 

 the result was that the fish got into the weeds and the 

 hook came away. At the speed that fish came down- 

 stream no ordinary winch could recover line fast enough. 

 Here would have been an opening for the Automatic 

 winch, and it might certainly be worth while giving it a 

 trial. Anyhow, I lost my fish and learnt a lesson, namely, 

 not to try experiments with valuable material. All day 

 long I could have winched in undersized fish ; but no, I 

 must wait till I get hold of the only decent fish of the 

 mayfly season to experiment upon it. 



By the time I had waded ashore, made several appro- 

 priate remarks to the keeper, lit a cigarette, and 

 otherwise relieved my feelings, the trout had ceased to 

 rise, and as night was gathering in we packed up, 

 walked back to the " Bell " to dinner (the most satis- 

 factory part of the day's proceedings), and returned to 

 London by the last train with the total bag for the 

 day two-and-a-half brace of fish for two rods, against 

 six-and-a-half brace for one rod the previous season. 



DACE ON THE KENNET. FISHING BY SIGHT. 



FREQUENTLY during the hot, cloudless days of June and 

 July, the angler, having toiled from early morn till about 

 ten in the forenoon, finds his occupation gone because, 



